Bernie Madoff's offices fueled by sexual affairs among employees

New York
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Bernard Madoff's multimillion-dollar empire did not only front for a criminal operation, according to federal prosecutors, it was a sex den featuring multiple affairs among employees, including the convicted Ponzi swindler himself.

“The government’s investigation has revealed that, over the course of the multi-decade fraud … a number of Madoff Securities employees and customers … were engaged in romantic or sexual relationships,” Justice Department prosecutors wrote in a motion filed in Manhattan federal court this week, ABC News Radio reported. “For example, one of the defendants was in a love triangle with Bernard Madoff himself.”

The behavior at Club Bernie was so inflammatory that it’s the feds who are asking that jurors be barred from hearing details when Madoff’s former secretary, Annette Bongiorno, and four other staffers stand trial in the fall on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy, The New York Post writes.

Prosecutors allege that Bongiorno pocketed more than $14 million in fraudulent profits by “investing” about $920,000 in Madoff’s scheme.

As the Associated Press reminds, Madoff was arrested in December 2008 and later admitted to a multi-decade fraud that cost thousands of investors about $20 billion. He is serving a 150-year prison sentence.

According to NJ.com, each of the five defendants — including office worker Joann Crupi of Westfield, former operations officer Daniel Bonventre and computer programmers George Perez and Jerome O’Hara — appeared in court and pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in Manhattan.

The trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 7.

But, as the Post notes, this is not the first time Madoff, 75, has been accused of fooling around. A lawsuit filed in 2009 by former investors alleged Madoff fostered “a culture of sexual deviance” and a cocaine-fueled workplace. It said the New York offices were nicknamed the “North Pole” because of the abundance of white powder – cocaine, CNN reported in 2009.

Company parties featured topless dancers, and employees had affairs among themselves and some of their customers, the suit alleged.